Today In Black History
Septima Poinsette Clark, Educator and Civil Rights Activist
Issue #541 Today In Black History, Friday, March 22, 2024
Today’s Black History WOW!
Septima Poinsette Clark was a pioneering educator and civil rights activist who dedicated her life to fighting for equal rights and opportunities for African Americans. She was born on May 3, 1898, in Charleston, South Carolina, and became a teacher, working in various schools in the South.
In 1916 Clark graduated from secondary school and because a college education was financially not feasible at that time for her, she took and passed the teacher’s exam instead. She started teaching at a Black school on Johns Island, just outside of Charleston.
In 1920, she joined the Charleston branch of the NAACP and became an active member of the civil rights movement. For more than 30 years, she taught throughout South Carolina, including 18 years in Columbia and 9 in Charleston.
In 1937 Clark was able to continue her studies under W. E. B. Du Bois at Atlanta University before eventually earning her BA from Benedict College in Columbia in 1942, and her MA in 1946 from Virginia’s Hampton Institute.
Clark also worked with the YWCA and participated in a class action lawsuit filed by the NAACP that led to pay equity for Black and white teachers in South Carolina.
In 1956 South Carolina passed a statute that prohibited city and state employees from belonging to civil rights organizations. After 40 years of teaching, Clark’s employment contract was not renewed when she refused to resign from the NAACP.
By the time of her firing in 1956, Clark had already begun to conduct workshops during her summer vacations at the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, a grassroots education center dedicated to social justice. Rosa Parks participated in one of Clark’s workshops just months before she helped launch the Montgomery Bus Boycott. After losing her teaching position, Clark was hired by Myles Horton full-time as Highlander’s director of workshops.
One of Clark's most significant contributions was her work with the Citizenship School Program, which aimed to teach African Americans how to read and write so they could pass the literacy tests required to vote. This program played a crucial role in the Civil Rights Movement and helped empower countless individuals to exercise their right to vote.
In 1975 she was elected to the Charleston, South Carolina, School Board. The following year, the governor of South Carolina reinstated her teacher’s pension after declaring that she had been unjustly terminated in 1956.
In 1978, Clark was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters by the College of Charleston. President Jimmy Carter awarded Clark a Living Legacy Award in 1979.
In 1987, her second autobiography, Ready from Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement won the American Book Award.
Septima P. Clark died on December 15, 1987, at 89 years of age.
Septima Clark Public Charter School in Washington, DC, is named in her honor. Septima P. Clark Parkway and Septima P. Clark Memorial Park in Charleston, S.C. are named in her honor.
Today In Black History
- In 1794, Congress banned U.S. vessels from supplying slaves to other countries.
- In 1873, slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico, and this day is now celebrated as Emancipation Day.
- In 1972, Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment, which has still not been ratified.
- In 1978, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare announced that federal funds would be withheld from public universities in North Carolina that did not effectively promote desegregation.
- In 1988, Congress overrode President Ronald Reagan’s veto of a sweeping civil rights bill.
- In 2021, Evanston, Illinois voted to become the first U.S. City to pay reparations to Black residents for past discrimination and effects of slavery, giving $400,000 to each household.
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